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Cutting Hair

Alright! Happy belated Canada Day to all my Canadian friends, and Happy Summer to all of my teaching friends! June was such a crazy month for both John and I! We have been renovating our backyard, which has turned our house upside down; I am moving schools, which means I have had to move everything from school to home, plus we have had staff parties, graduations, teacher and staff gifts, as well as the usual day to day activities for a family of four! So, I have been crazy busy, but no time to write about anything I am doing!
Here’s the good news… we have absolutely nothing planned for summer yet. The kids aren’t in any camps, we don’t have plans to go away… we are free! (Mind you, finding a couple summer camps for the kids is first on my list of things to do!)
So, nothing like a good summer haircut to start off the summer! I have tried talking Dylan into growing his hair a little, and try out a Justin Bieber sort of style, but he isn’t going for it….maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned Justin Bieber when I was trying to sell him on the idea….oh well. Anyways, Dylan just wants his hair short now because it’s comfortable, and cool, so who am I to argue?
If you are thinking about cutting hair, I would seriously recommend buying an electric shaver kit. You can find them for $20-30, and the attachments make it almost idiot proof (notice I said, “almost”) I have been cutting John’s hair for about 15 years now… I offered when we were dating once, and unfortunately, he said yes, and I have been roped into doing it ever since.
Here is my beautiful boy….(pre-cut)

So, to start, I always work from the back at the bottom to the front. So, start with the #1 attachment and trim about the width of the razor, starting at the bottom and cutting up, against the way the hair grows.. Because Dylan has inherited my husband’s crazy hairline, sometimes I have to go over the same spot a couple times, and shave sideways, or going down.
Here is the back of his head before…

And after the #1….

Then, now that you can see the hairline, take the attachment off and trim the hairline to neaten up the edges and back of the neck. I have found that the less you shave off here the better. If you shave off too much, it looks a little strange, so only trim off whatever you need to.

From here on, you basically cut a row at a time, changing attachments with each row. Here is row #2, with the #2 attachment…notice I cut around the ears too..

Row #3, with the #3 attachment…

The #4 attachment for Dylan cut around the top of his head…

Then, I used a sharp pair of scissors to trim around his ears. Once again, less is better here. Don’t cut any more than you need to here. Sorry it’s not a great photo, but it’s hard to hold my ipad and take a photo with one hand and cut around Dylan’s ear with the other… I didn’t want to give his ears a trim too by accident! (Which brings me back to my childhood where I would watch my mom cut my brother’s hair…she would give them a bowl of raisins to keep them quiet while she was cutting, but leet’s just say I remember a few accidental snips around the ears! And, a lot of hairy raisins too!)

Then, because I didn’t want his hair too short, I used the scissors to blend in the part I had cut to the bangs. To do this, use your fingers to hold the hair, and snip at an angle to cut off the longer pieces like this….

Repeat this several times. I have found that it’s best to cut the same spot a few times. I even cut in sort of a criss-cross pattern, to cut any stray long parts.
Here is the “finished product”… isn’t he adorable?? It’s ok, I’m allowed to take credit for not only the haircut, after all, I made him too!